


Broken, Fallen, After

by the_pen_is_mightier



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Aziraphale, Asexual Crowley, Aziraphale Falls, Aziraphale whump, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally hurt crowley, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Torture, Whump, graphic depictions of the fall, hurt aziraphale, some BAMF Aziraphale, this ends happier than you think it will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25004422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_pen_is_mightier/pseuds/the_pen_is_mightier
Summary: The angels capture Aziraphale and Crowley and take them to Heaven, to a cliff Crowley remembers well. Aziraphale is beaten and tortured, Crowley forced to watch, as they attempt to make him renounce his love for Crowley. Eventually they cast Aziraphale out of Heaven, and he Falls.What will come afterward? What will happen to Aziraphale now that he’s a demon? And what will become of the love that has barely begun between Crowley and him?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 222





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm dipping my toes back into whump! This one is whumpier than "a certain kind of gentle terror," which had most of its violence in summaries. This one's first chapter is almost entirely whump content, but the other two will be mostly comfort and fluff (with the exception of a few flashbacks in chapter two, set off by italics). I hope you all enjoy it, and thanks for coming!

He remembered. Of course he remembered. The images of those horrifying long-ago trials were burned, branded into his mind with a force even six thousand years couldn’t erase. He’d seen it all, every last angel scorched and cracked and kicked over the cliff down into Hell; even Crowley, he supposed, though he hadn’t known Crowley then, and Crowley had never talked about it. Of course he’d heard their screams echo through all Heaven’s celestial halls before they’d been eternally cast down.

Six thousand years he’d lived in terror of it. The second he let himself get close to Crowley, the second he allowed himself even to think of him with that tiny, desperate love that lay beneath his fear, he’d heard those ear-shattering screams again. And he’d cringed away. 

Of course Crowley had understood; Crowley had been so unutterably patient, so kind, gentle in every offer to move closer. But Aziraphale had fallen for him long ago. And now Heaven knew, and there was nothing Crowley could do anymore to protect him. 

Aziraphale woke in chains, kneeling on frost-cold marble. 

He felt the pressure around his wrists before anything else. Before he could see, before he processed the unbearable brightness of Heaven or the angels standing in front of him, he felt them, the white celestial metal biting so passionlessly into his skin, and he knew where he was somewhere deep in his bones.

“Morning, sunshine.”

His head snapped up. He was already trembling, his heart already going too fast. Gabriel stood before him, Michael and Sandalphon at his shoulders; they all glared down at him with identical expressions of contempt. 

“We wondered how long it would take you to wake up,” said Sandalphon. 

_No._ Aziraphale’s breath caught in his throat. Instinctively he tugged at the chains that fastened him to the ground, but they didn’t budge; they kept his arms apart and prevented him from rising from his knees. He sucked in a breath but couldn’t hold it. They kept coming fast and shallow, of a pace with his frantically beating heart. _No. No, not this, not after all this time, please -_

“You’re here for your punishment.” Gabriel smiled in that false, stilted, inhuman way. “We were sure to get it right this time. And this is better than death by Hellfire, anyway - it’s a punishment that better fits your crime.” 

_Not this, I can’t take it, I won’t be able to - I can’t!_

Aziraphale couldn’t turn his head, couldn’t twist far enough around to see behind him. But he knew what was there. He knew the abyss yawned at his back, the flames of Hell rising up, ready to swallow him - those flames he’d seen consume every damned angel at the beginning of time. He knew what they were here to do to him. The thing that had haunted his every nightmare, that had kept him from sleep for centuries, that had driven him away and away from the demon who loved him, who had tried to care for him, who he’d never been good enough to care for in return, and it was here, it was _happening -_

And - and - his eye caught on something to his left. 

Aziraphale’s jaw dropped. Several yards away, Crowley was kneeling in the same position as him, with a black eye and a bloodied lip, holy chains digging into his wrists as well.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasped. 

Crowley’s face was brimming with panic. He was straining against his bonds; Aziraphale glimpsed the red, chafed wrists beneath the holy metal holding him back and knew it wasn’t cold for Crowley, not passionless, but sharp and hot as a poker against demonic skin. But Crowley didn’t seem to notice; he yanked at his chains as though certain he could break them with enough effort. His eyes were fixed on Aziraphale’s face. His lips, Aziraphale saw after a moment, were endlessly mouthing his name. 

_Aziraphale. Aziraphale._ Anguish in his sunglass-stripped eyes. 

“Yes,” said Sandalphon, sounding delighted. “We thought it would be fitting, too, if your demon were here to watch.” 

“No,” Aziraphale whimpered, the echo in his mind at last finding voice in reality. 

“You don’t deserve to be called an angel,” said Gabriel, and there was anger in his voice now. “You disobeyed the Great Plan. You ruined the end of the world. All for your stupid, selfish affection for food and books and that _disgusting_ demon.” 

Blood was rushing in his ears. The images were flashing through his mind. They were never far away, oh, but here they were in such sharp clarity it was as if they’d been waiting for this moment - an angel with wings twisted and mangled into impossible angles, another with stripes lashed into his back, another with her hair and feathers yanked out in handfuls, all screaming and screaming until they choked and sobbed. 

Nausea churned in his stomach and up into his chest. He was going to throw up. His whole body was shaking like a city in an earthquake, and he was going to crumble like a building on the fault line. They couldn’t do this to him. It would destroy him. 

He was an angel. He’d let those demons be beaten and cast down because he’d feared to speak out against it. Because he’d known that would land him in the same lot with them. He’d _watched_ \- he shuddered - he’d watched every last Fall because his objections had been squeezed down by the horror of that pain. 

And here he was, and Gabriel was stepping toward him now, and it was here.

“No!” he cried at last. “Please, please, I didn’t mean - I never meant - I’m an angel, I want to be an angel!”

“But you won’t live like one.” Gabriel shook his head. “Six thousand years we tried to get you to live like one, and you still betrayed us in the end.”

“I -” Aziraphale’s panic choked off his words. He coughed instead, the force of a thousand tears crammed too close in his throat to reach his eyes. “I won’t - I wouldn’t - I’ll do anything, I’ll prove myself loyal, I’ll - just please, _please_ don’t do this!”

“Don’t!” came Crowley’s voice, a rasp. “Don’t hurt him! Hurt me, make me Fall again if you want to!”

“Shut up!” Gabriel flung out a hand toward Crowley, and Crowley broke off and wheezed as though he’d been kicked in the gut. Aziraphale strained his eyes around Gabriel’s approaching form to see if Crowley was all right, but he could see nothing but the angel. Nothing but his face as he drew closer and closer, as at last he was standing directly above Aziraphale, Aziraphale kneeling chained down at his feet. 

The same position they’d all been in. Before Gabriel and the others had broken them. 

“There _is_ something you can do to escape your punishment,” said Gabriel. 

Sick relief sent Aziraphale’s head spinning. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll -”

“Look.” Gabriel crouched down and pointed to Crowley. Aziraphale got a full view of him again; his face still bare and wild, his eyes bloodshot, lips working so fast around Aziraphale’s name their movement was a blur. Pain and terror in an ugly clash along every line of his straining frame. Every inch of him bent toward Aziraphale. 

“Look at that demon,” said Gabriel. “Tell him you don’t love him.” 

_______

Crowley had awoken when the door to the bookshop opened. He and Aziraphale had spent the previous evening with a bottle of wine, chatting and laughing in their usual way, celebrating another day of a world that wasn’t supposed to have existed. He’d fallen asleep on Aziraphale’s armchair; Aziraphale had been laid out on the couch. The first time he’d slept in Crowley’s presence. Crowley suspected the excess of alcohol had been the cause. 

But Crowley had awoken, and Gabriel and Sandalphon and Michael had Aziraphale bound and gagged, and his head had been pounding and his legs asleep and he hadn’t managed to fight them. They’d overcome him shamefully easily, dragged him up to Heaven kicking and screaming but unable to really resist.

He’d known, the minute he saw the cliff’s edge, what their plan was for Aziraphale. He remembered that cliff’s edge. He remembered the agony of the Fall, what they’d done to him, how they’d brought him down before throwing him over. 

They couldn’t do that to Aziraphale. He couldn’t let them. Even chained and bruised and bloody he had to do something to stop it. 

“Tell him you don’t love him,” he heard Gabriel say, and Crowley watched as Aziraphale’s eyes grew huge and round in his face.

He should be relieved. He should rejoice that they were giving Aziraphale any chance at all to escape this punishment. But the words were like knives; they sliced hot and precise through the most sensitive parts of him. They would force Aziraphale to pretend not to love him - just as they had for six thousand years. They would force Aziraphale to go back to treating him like an enemy. 

Aziraphale was silent. Tears were gathering thick and fast in his eyes. 

_Say it_ , Crowley wanted to shout. _I’m not worth it, just deny me, save yourself -_ but he couldn’t haul the words up from his chest. He’d been denied love from the moment he’d asked his first questions; he couldn’t make himself ask to be denied again. 

“I…” whispered Aziraphale. 

That was stupid. What was he thinking? He’d rather be subjected to the Fall a hundred more times than watch them hurt Aziraphale for a single second. And shouldn’t he be used to Aziraphale saying he didn’t love him? Until a few days ago, a few blissful, hope-filled days, hadn’t that been his lot for all time? 

He should speak, he should _speak_ , he had to help stop this. 

“You’re quiet,” said Gabriel. “Does that mean no?” 

The tears ran over and spilled down Aziraphale’s cheeks. He cowered as Gabriel rose again, vainly trying for a protective stance while his hands were shackled to the ground. Still he said nothing. 

_Damn you, bastard, why do you say something?_ Refusal now would only mean they’d break him. They’d beat the proclamation out of him. Crowley remembered, he still felt that terrible, dizzying, soul-rending pain, he still knew -

“Well, then,” said Gabriel. “I guess we’ll begin.” 

_______

It was a much smaller demand than Aziraphale had expected. Really, nothing but what he’d been doing before. A return to the status quo - and that hadn’t been so bad, had it? Those six thousand years of nothing but a strained friendship? 

But after Armageddon, after what had passed between them in the new world…

“Sandalphon,” Gabriel said, “bring me the whip.” 

Aziraphale’s stomach heaved. Unable to stop himself, he vomited, dark bile forcing its way up his throat and splattering on the pristine marble of the cliff. Shame mixed with his terror as Gabriel laughed. Crowley could see him, Crowley would know he was a coward. He would know it a million times more when they forced those words out of him - and they _would_ , he knew they would, he knew he was too weak to resist them - but even now, when Aziraphale was throwing up at nothing but the thought of the coming torment, Crowley could see. 

Gabriel unfastened Aziraphale’s chains from the ground with a miracle, and in another moment he’d bound them together and raised them up, forcing Aziraphale’s arms above his head, securing them to some ethereal anchor there. Aziraphale hung shuddering from his wrists as Sandalphon handed Gabriel something and stepped away again to watch.

Abruptly his jacket, his vest, his button-up shirt were miracled away. He was bare, pale and utterly exposed from the waist up. 

“No,” he whimpered again. 

“Say you don’t love him and it stops,” said Gabriel, without emotion. 

And then a blistering stripe of flame cracked over his back. Nausea and fear and pain exploded from his throat all together, and the block on his voice shattered, and he screamed. 

_______

The faces of the other angels ranged from grim to gleeful as Gabriel brought the whip down on Aziraphale’s back. Aziraphale convulsed with the first blow and the second, his face split open in a cry of pain, but they didn’t flinch, didn’t draw back. On the third blow the contents of Aziraphale’s stomach emptied again and nothing crossed their faces but a brief look of disgust on Michael’s. 

Crowley remembered those lashes. He felt them again on his shoulders, no more muffled by time than the drop had been, but amplified a thousand times watching them land on Aziraphale. His angel, his kind, sweet, soft angel, who he’d never seen before without his prim and fussy clothes, the whip cracking down on him a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth -

“Stop it!” Crowley screamed. “Stop it! He doesn’t deserve -”

Another flick of Gabriel’s arms sent him reeling, the air punched from his gut. He struggled to breathe in again as a harsher lash turned Aziraphale’s cry into a sob. 

_Say it, just say it, why are you drawing this out?_

Why couldn’t he say those words aloud? Why couldn’t he beg Aziraphale to give in? What was wrong with him, that he could possibly be thinking of himself, that he could be held back by his own stupid emotions, when they were torturing the man he loved in front of him? It wouldn’t hurt to hear those words, it couldn’t, or if it did it wouldn’t be so bad -

And yet - and yet -

_Friends? We’re not friends! We are an angel and a demon! We have nothing whatsoever in common!_

The knowledge that had come with those words - the fear he saw in Aziraphale’s eyes - the certainty that Crowley’s presence, his friendship, his stupid, vulgar love was doing nothing but hurting Aziraphale. That their plan to preserve the Earth was only putting him in danger. That all Crowley had wanted all those years, he didn’t deserve, and couldn’t, shouldn’t ever have. 

Later, after everything, Aziraphale had suggested something different. Crowley had just been beginning to think his love wasn’t a curse after all. 

And now… 

“Stop,” Aziraphale sobbed. “Please, no more, stop, _please_ -” the whip landed again across already-carved red stripes on his shoulders - _“ahhhh -”_

_Curse me, damn it, why won’t you spare yourself?_

Crowley couldn’t say it. 

_______

Aziraphale couldn’t think. The pain blasted thought out of his mind, blasted his mind out of his head - but he could still _feel_ , couldn’t detach himself at all from the agony radiating into him. It rose up through his body like a black choking tide and overwhelmed him. He shuddered and screamed and begged but it was unrelenting. The whip’s strokes landed brutally, one after the other, for so long he couldn’t possibly have kept count even if he wanted to. 

When at last they stopped he sagged forward in his bonds, shoulders screaming with the pain of the lashes and the strain of his trussed arms. He gasped in short, painful bursts of air, still trembling as Gabriel circled around to his front.

His hand tilted Aziraphale’s chin up, forcing Aziraphale to look him in the eyes. Another wave of shame struck Aziraphale as he knew the kind of pleading, pathetic expression he must be giving Gabriel.

“No more,” he whispered. “Please, I can’t take it.”

“You know what you have to do.” 

Aziraphale’s gaze dropped. He couldn't stay quiet for long; he knew that. He couldn’t bear to fathom the alternative to cracking, the worse things they would do to him before the Fall, the agony, the stripping of his angelic nature. He’d been an angel since before time began. He’d always put Crowley second to that. It shouldn’t mean anything to tell such a lie to the Heavenly host, not if it would save him from this. 

And yet -

_(Crowley took his hand, letting their fingers twine together, on their walk home from the Ritz. He smiled at Aziraphale with an impossibly soft kind of smile. Aziraphale felt himself poised on the brink of something reckless, but he smiled back, and squeezed Crowley’s hand in his own._

_“I want more with you,” Crowley said, his voice so quiet, so gentle. “Is that all right?”_

_Something warm, like honey, like liquid light pulsed through Aziraphale’s chest. “I think so.”_

_“I won’t go fast. It can be at your pace, whatever you need. I just…”_

_“I know.” Aziraphale gained the courage to stop, to clasp Crowley’s hand in both of his and rub gently over the demon’s fingers. To gaze into his eyes and let warmth show on his face. “I feel the same as you.”)_

“Michael,” said Gabriel loudly, “the cane.” 

Her steps were sharp in his ears, so sharp Aziraphale flinched with every one. He flinched, too, when Gabriel released his chin and circled back around behind him.

“Last chance before we start again,” said Gabriel.

“No, please, _please_ , don’t do this - I can’t - I - I don’t want to Fall, _please_ , don’t hurt me, I _can’t!_ ” 

But the pain was already rising up in Aziraphale again, the filthy black waves of it, like oil, like tar. He couldn’t speak now. All he could do was brace himself as Gabriel raised the cane and it whistled down, _crack,_ and that sharp, searing fire was reaching up to rend him apart again. 

_______

Aziraphale didn’t writhe through the caning. He only spasmed, his head still sagged forward, limp and unresisting as he was beaten. He cried instead of screaming or begging. High-pitched cries and deep, guttural sobs, one after the other with each swipe of the cane. Crowley felt someone must have taken steel wool to his skin; every inch of him burned, every cell in his body was crying for mercy. But it wasn’t him feeling the pain. 

This was his fault. All his fault. He should have stayed away from Aziraphale if he cared for him. If he loved him, if a condemned thing like him was even capable of love, he should have protected Aziraphale from his presence. 

A crack unlike any of the others stabbed into Crowley’s mind. One of Aziraphale’s bones had been broken. A shattered groan followed it; the groan stabbed even deeper.

_Stop this, get yourself out, save yourself, deny me, deny me, deny -_

It did no good. 

Aziraphale’s body was twisted when Gabriel finished. His shoulders had dislocated, skin pinched around bones that had lost their joints or been broken out of shape. His breath was more labored than ever, a rasping, grating pant that sounded almost more agonizing than the strokes of the cane. Crowley could barely watch as Gabriel moved back around to look Aziraphale in the face; yet looking away, sparing himself the pain he couldn’t spare Aziraphale from, felt worse.

“Why so stubborn?” Gabriel demanded. “You know there’s worse in store for you now. We could have left it off with the beating.”

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale pleaded. “Gabriel, you’re an angel. You’re supposed to be merciful. You’re all supposed to be -”

Gabriel slapped Aziraphale across the face.

“Don’t you dare tell me how an angel ought to act,” he growled. “Don’t you _dare_ act like you know more about Heaven than I do, you pathetic, weak little bird.” 

Aziraphale hung his head again, silent.

This time Gabriel didn’t ask another angel for an implement. He rubbed his hands together, and Crowley saw a strange, blue-white glow bloom within his palms. Something as bright and unreal-looking as all Heaven’s sterile halls.

“No,” Crowley found himself saying aloud. “No, no - not that - _no! Aziraphale, don’t let them -_ ”

Another phantom kick in the stomach. Gabriel put his hand on Aziraphale’s chest, the casual violence of the touch seeming to shock Aziraphale first, before the blue light blasted out from his fingers.

Now Aziraphale screamed again. Now, with a desperation, an agony beyond anything the whip or the cane had brought, he twisted madly to get away from Gabriel’s hand. But there was nowhere to go. Gabriel held him still and grinned as Aziraphale’s body was wracked with the pain of the archangel’s holiness.

_______

His body wasn’t his. He’d lost control of its movement, jerking and thrashing under Gabriel’s hand like a puppet yanked about on strings. Gabriel was using his angelic aura as a weapon - Aziraphale had seen it done only during the trials, but he’d never imagined what it felt like. Never imagined it felt like acid and steel and flaming knives spiraling through his veins instead of blood. His scream rose in pitch as Gabriel dug his fingers in, looking to bruise, turning the tempo of the holiness coursing through him up impossibly higher.

“Curse him,” Gabriel growled. “Do it.” 

_I’m sorry, Crowley, I’m so sorry, I can’t endure this - I don’t mean it, but I can’t Fall, I can’t take another second of this or I’ll lose my mind -_

He glimpsed Crowley’s face for a moment, behind Gabriel’s. He saw the horror on it. 

_(“I didn’t mean it.”_

_Crowley put a hand on Aziraphale’s arm. Aziraphale felt soothed by it, by the tenderness of Crowley’s fingers; he managed to blink back the tears he’d wanted to shed. He looked up into Crowley’s face and saw nothing but compassion in his eyes._

_“I understand,” Crowley said. “Really, I do.”_

_“It’s only that - I’m not brave like you. I pushed you away, there at the bandstand, because I was afraid.”_

_“I know.”_

_Aziraphale wanted to say more - wanted to say words he’d never let himself think of before, words of praise and affection and regret and, yes, words of love - but he couldn’t reach them yet. A yawning chasm of fear still held him back._

_“It’s all right,” said Crowley. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wait for you.”)_

No. No, no, no, _no -_

Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut and wailed as the knives tore through him. Scouring everything out of him, everything soft and bright and buoyant, poisoning it and ripping it from his chest like a heart and leaving him with only gaping emptiness, filled with the thick inky tide. 

They would tear his very self away. There would be nothing left. 

_______

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Crowley knew the angels would never really show mercy. He knew there was almost no chance they’d spare Aziraphale from falling if he denied his love. They were already too far gone for that, too angry about the end of the world, too high, after torturing Aziraphale this long, on their own sadistic power. But he held out a shred of hope through the beginning. He held onto his internal pleas for Aziraphale to stop them with his words. Surely there was still time for all this to be broken off? Surely Aziraphale could remain an angel if he cast away the weight around his ankle? 

When Gabriel miracled away Aziraphale’s chains, and Aziraphale fell limply to his knees, then his elbows, and when Gabriel pressed a fist down hard into Aziraphale’s back to force his white wings to manifest - then Crowley knew it was over. 

There was nothing he could do; how could he rescue him? He’d chafed the skin off his wrists in his chains, but to no avail. He didn’t feel his own pain, but he couldn’t gain any strength either - he was as weak and useless as a fly before these angels. He had nothing on his side. _They_ had nothing on their side but each other, but each other wasn’t good enough. 

Aziraphale was crying again. Crowley couldn’t see his face, but he saw his shoulders shaking as his bowed head nearly touched the ground. His wings shook too, shockingly pure and untouched in contrast to the bloody mess of the rest of him. 

Gabriel sank his fingers into the feathers of Aziraphale’s right wing. “Can you hear me, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale twitched, his muffled sobs not abating.

“I’m giving you _one -_ ” he curled his fist - _“last -”_ he twisted his hand, snapping something - _“chance.”_ He yanked his arm away with a handful of broken, bloodied feathers. 

Hardly a movement from Aziraphale, nothing but another shudder. 

“Prove you don’t deserve to be damned.” Gabriel dug his fingers into the left wing and yanked out more feathers. “Prove your loyalty.” 

At no reply, Gabriel gestured Sandalphon and Michael over. The amusement was gone from all their faces now; they were nothing but grim as they reached down, all at once, to tear out every white feather they could get their hands on.

Crowley couldn’t help it. He looked away at last, unable to stand the sight of their brutal, ripping hands. But he could do nothing to plug his ears when feather tore from flesh, when flesh tore from itself, when Aziraphale howled and beat his bloodied wings as though instinctively trying for escape.

He couldn’t plug his ears when the cane reappeared and came down hard and brutal on those wings, breaking the bones, twisting them like the rest of him until he couldn’t even think of flying.

Time lost meaning for seconds or hours. Crowley couldn’t comprehend its continual passage; nothing existed for him, for anyone, but those terrible sounds. He shut his eyes but saw them beating Aziraphale against his lids; he opened them but saw the marble ground and remembered when he’d been beaten himself. He tried to block out Aziraphale’s cries but that only made them louder in his imagination. He tried to gain the courage to look, but his head spun so violently he thought he might faint if he watched. 

_Just let it be over soon, please, if he won’t deny me, let it be over!_

Who was he talking to now? 

It was an eternity, and another, and a million more before it stopped. 

“It’s now or never,” said Gabriel. “Do you want to become a demon?”

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale again. He hadn’t changed position; still collapsed onto his knees, bowed forward, his arms covering his head. His wings red and mangled now, the skin lacerated and beaten. 

He wasn’t wearing his jacket and vest and tie; they’d robbed him of that at the very beginning. He didn’t look like himself now at all. Without his wings, blood in his white hair, nothing could remind Crowley of the angel he loved. This hollowed-out thing was a stranger.

Crowley’s heart twisted. It _was_ too late. Aziraphale was only a hair away from Falling already.

“Do you want to be thrown away from Heaven?” Gabriel pressed. 

And at last, Aziraphale raised his head a fraction. 

The look on the angel’s face wrenched a sob from Crowley’s throat. His wings, his back were one thing, but his face was that of a stranger’s too. No smile danced around his mouth, no light twinkled in his eyes, no excitement or interest. Instead his lips were curled into an expression almost like a snarl. Something so dark and so harsh and so mirthless it wouldn’t be out of place on any demon’s countenance. And with that snarl fixed in place, he spat a wad of saliva and blood at Gabriel’s feet. 

His angel was gone. Gone, gone, gone. 

The angels hauled him back up onto his knees. Michael disappeared for a moment and came back with a dark bowl, clutching it through a pair of rags; when she placed it down behind Aziraphale, Gabriel and Sandalphon held his wings back so they stretched directly over it. 

Aziraphale’s grim, haggard face twisted as Hellfire roared up from the bowl. The ruined flesh of his wings sizzled, bubbled, blistered in the inferno; the only thing that could harm an angel’s true form, the only thing that made an unhealable wound. The fire ate greedily through him, too visible, impossibly clear on Crowley’s eyes. 

The groan from Aziraphale’s throat sounded more like a growl. 

It happened excruciatingly slowly. Up from the ravaged skin, black feathers stabbed out one by one. Like colonies of mold at first, until they took more definite shape. Some force rippled through the rest of him too; something shadowed and smothering, something white-hot and piercing. The blue of Aziraphale’s eyes turned as red as the Earth’s core. His hair, that swan-white hair that had always glowed around his head like a halo, turned a stormy, murky shade of gray. 

And then, at last, the Hellfire abated. Michael picked up the bowl gingerly, holding it away from herself as she carried it away. Aziraphale was left still bloody and beaten, his wings still broken, twisted, still unable to rise. 

“Well,” said Gabriel. “I hope it was worth it.” 

He kicked Aziraphale in the chest, right where he’d put his hand before. Aziraphale toppled backward as though lacking any strength to catch himself. His wings spread uselessly, and his limp arms spread helplessly, and he tumbled straight down over the cliff.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No more whump content here, but there are flashbacks set off by italics!

The angels washed their hands after Aziraphale was gone. Gabriel used a miracle to clean the ground, but they all washed their hands manually, using a bowl of pure, sparkling Holy Water. Only when they’d finished did Gabriel at last glance in Crowley’s direction, make a contemptuous sound, and release him from his chains.

Crowley didn’t hesitate. He sprang to his feet - his knees ached and stung from the hours (days?) he’d spent kneeling, but he didn’t have a moment to spare. He charged at the cliff and dove from it, spreading his wings and angling them down to hurtle toward the bottom.

_Aziraphale, I’m coming, I’m coming for you -_

But Aziraphale wouldn’t want to see him, would he? He must know that Crowley was the cause of all this, that Crowley had condemned him to torture and damnation, that Crowley had robbed him of that one name - _angel_ \- that had been all Aziraphale ever cared about. He would hate the sight of Crowley now. He would hate everything to do with him.

And… Crowley’s stomach churned. Aziraphale wasn’t even himself. The Fall had altered him, just as it had altered every angel at the beginning of the world. Just as it had altered _him_ , Crowley, turning him from that beautiful starmaker to the foul crawling serpent who’d caused humanity’s downfall. Would Aziraphale even recognize him? Would he recognize Aziraphale?

This was his doing, his fault, his crime. He’d actually thought, for three days, that he might be allowed to be happy. He’d actually thought he could take glimmers of love from an angel without consequence. And now…

Crowley at last glimpsed the bottom of the Pit. His stomach churned again at the sight - Aziraphale, sure enough, unconscious in the dirt and the slime, his broken body splayed out like a corpse.

He landed next to Aziraphale and found himself kneeling again.

“Angel,” he choked. “Angel, angel, angel…” 

Aziraphale didn’t stir. Crowley reached out, hands shaking violently, and worked an arm under his back to support him upright. The lashes on his back smeared blood on his fingers and he clamped his free hand over his mouth to keep his vomit down. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whimpered. As gently as he could he pulled Aziraphale’s ravaged form in to his chest and cradled him there. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have - but I didn’t mean to hurt you, Aziraphale, I _swear_ I never wanted to.”

What good was that declaration? Who did he think he was, making pathetic excuses to Aziraphale’s unconscious form, as though he were still whole and well and able to forgive him? As if Crowley hadn’t just lost the only means of forgiveness he’d ever had? And why the _hell_ was he holding Aziraphale like a lover, when if Aziraphale was awake he’d have shoved Crowley away and spat on him? 

Crowley shook himself. He had to get Aziraphale somewhere safe. Heal him in whatever meager ways he could. Then, when he was sure Aziraphale would recover…

What? He’d leave him to be damned alone? What would that solve? 

But there was nothing he could _do_ , there was no way to un-damn him. There was only more or less comfort to give him in this nightmarish new reality. He’d give him as much comfort as was possible, as much as Aziraphale allowed him, before Aziraphale regained his senses and decided what to do. 

Crowley shut his eyes and thought hard. A moment later he was kneeling, not on the filthy ground zero of Hell, but on the soft carpet of Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

Aziraphale didn’t stir. He sagged onto his back, onto his broken wings, when Crowley released him. Crowley could hardly bear to look at them - black, _black_ , his angel’s wings were Fallen, cursed and stricken and charred like meat, how _dare_ they - but he couldn’t just sit there and let every terrible thing they’d done horrify him. He worked his arms around Aziraphale again, hauling him up and bearing him over to the couch.

Crowley had slept on this couch last night. If this had all been one endless, excruciating day. Now he laid Aziraphale out, working painstakingly to straighten his wings, to apply a thin crust of demonic healing to the shattered bones. They were still ugly, torn things when he was through, but at least they were in the right shape. With an effort of will he folded them back out of existence and let Aziraphale lie flat down on his back. 

Again he knelt. He could think of nothing else to do. He bowed his head over Aziraphale’s prone form and shook, and the images washed over him again - the whip, the cane, Gabriel’s hand, the hellfire - and he wept. 

_______

_They would tear his very self away. There would be nothing left._

_That was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it? Aziraphale couldn’t endure pain. He couldn’t maintain his grasp on himself when it overtook him. He would do anything, anything at all to preserve himself. So if they overwhelmed him with pain, if they shoved his head under that black tide until he stopped breathing, he would disintegrate._

_They forced his wings out. They ripped out the white feathers. They broke those brittle, vulnerable bones until they’d broken the angel who bore them._

_They burned him. They kicked him over the side._

_The flames of Hell reached up, up, and lashed around him, and dragged him to the bottom of the Pit._

Aziraphale was enclosed in darkness. Sometimes he felt tossed on that dark tide, thrown up by waves and driven down by them; sometimes he felt he was sinking in quicksand, fighting and thrashing but unable to pull himself free. Sometimes he felt bound up again, and sometimes chained down. But the bright whiteness of Heaven never appeared in his thoughts. There was nothing, nothing but darkness.

His thoughts were confused. Memories whirled around each other, monstrous images he couldn’t be sure were real. Gabriel tearing the skin from his chest, laughing. His wings spilling endless amounts of black feathers from some interminable wellspring inside them, shoving up through his skin like needles each time. Crowley kneeling by his side, head bent over his stomach, hands clasped as if in prayer.

Was that one real? He couldn’t be sure. Darkness pulled him under again. 

_______

Days passed in a haze. Crowley didn’t rise from his position by Aziraphale’s side. He didn’t eat; all his appetite had deserted him, and he was sure he wouldn’t be able to keep anything down. But his corporation had grown used to sleep, and when night fell he sometimes dozed on Aziraphale’s belly as he waited for him to wake. 

Every sleep was punctuated by nightmares. He woke sweating and gasping, eyes streaming with tears all over again, and could only stare at Aziraphale’s stern, dirt-lined face, his storm-gray hair, and sob out a million more apologies he knew Aziraphale couldn’t hear. 

“You were the best angel,” Crowley whispered through gritted teeth. “The _best_. They never deserved you.” 

Aziraphale was stone-still. 

“And I’d have waited for you another twelve thousand years, if that was what it took.” Stupid thing to say - waiting for Aziraphale hadn’t protected him, it had only given him the illusion of choice, it hadn’t kept him from harm in the end - but he knew it, felt it as the truth deep within him, and he couldn’t stop himself from speaking it now. “I love you. I’ve loved you for six thousand years and all I’ve ever wanted is for you to feel safe.”

He couldn’t breathe for a moment through his tears. 

_Friends? We’re not friends!_

_The pain in those words, the wobble of Aziraphale’s lip as though it cost him everything to utter them._

“And I know,” Crowley choked out, “I know you never, _ever_ have. I _know_ what those bastards have done to you for six thousand years, making you live in fear of them. I just wanted you to feel like you had someone who wouldn’t hurt you. I wanted - Aziraphale, I wanted to be that for you.” 

Because no one had ever been that for him, had they? No one had ever sheltered Crowley through the pain and the shame and the terror of the Fall.

No one except Aziraphale. 

But he’d been all wrong. He’d only made everything worse. He ought to slink back to Hell in shame before he inflicted his presence a second longer on Aziraphale. He ought to tear himself away from Aziraphale’s violently changed body and never return. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I love you. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. I -” he shuddered out another sob - “I _love_ you.” 

Night followed day, and day followed night. Despite his misgivings, despite his certainty that Aziraphale was better off without him, through every dragging hour Crowley kept his vigil beside Aziraphale. 

_______

_They tore out his feathers. It was worse than anything else they’d done, worse even than Gabriel’s angelic aura - there was something deeper, more intimate about pulling the feathers from his flesh that hit closer to that burning center of fear within him. Robbed him just a little further of his identity. His angel wings, the great white wings that he’d taken pride in, that he’d used to fly and to shed light and cast warmth all around him. Stripped away like paint, like paper._

_They broke them. All the strength swept up within those wings, powerless against ordinary canes and cruel angels. He hadn’t even been chained down for that part; he’d been unable to fight back. He’d let them shatter him._

_They burned him, and the Hellfire had taken root inside his wings and spread through him - like dye staining fabric, spreading outward in spiderweb threads until it had pierced, it had transformed every part of him._

_But before that, before the Hellfire -_

_Before that, Gabriel had spoken. Cut through the pain to taunt him a final time. Or to offer mercy - had he been serious? Had he really intended to stop if Aziraphale -_

_“It’s now or never,” he’d said. “Do you want to be a demon?”_

_And Aziraphale had heard those words - “now or never” - and known it was coming, that irreversible thing, the blackening of his wings and then the fall - the Fall, over the cliff and down into Hell. Aziraphale had known the worst thing in the universe, the worst thing that could possibly happen to an angel, the thing he’d spent his life desperate to avoid at all costs, was closing in on him at last._

_And…_

He was aware of lying on something soft. His body ached, his limbs felt weak and fragile, but the pressure against his back was a gentle, yielding one. Something rested on his stomach. He’d thought he saw Crowley there, but he couldn’t be sure - couldn’t remember anything clearly. His eyes were shut and the world had shrunk to nothing but his mind. 

Only someone was speaking. In a low, frantic murmur, someone was saying his name. Of that he grew more and more certain as the moments passed. 

_______

“Aziraphale,” Crowley whispered. “Aziraphale. Angel.” 

The body beneath him shifted.

His eyes flew open. He nearly leapt to his feet; his heart thundered in his ears, his breath caught in his lungs, as he searched Aziraphale’s face for signs of life. Slowly Aziraphale’s eyes squeezed shut, then, even slower, blinked open.

Flame-red. Red as hot coals, as bombed skies, as blood. 

Crowley couldn’t speak. In all the time he’d stayed here he hadn’t come up with a single word to say to Aziraphale when he woke. Maybe a part of him had hoped this was all a nightmare, and when he woke he would be ordinary again, blue eyes and white hair and snowy wings. But Aziraphale’s eyes met his, and he stared at Crowley, and there was no mistaking it had all been real. 

Aziraphale spoke first. His voice was hoarse. “Am I home?”

Crowley nodded. “Yes. Yes, you’re - we’re in the bookshop. I miracled us here.” 

The gray head nodded slowly, as if thoughtful. 

“What can I do?” Crowley got out at last. “I want - I mean - if there’s anything I -” He couldn’t keep his thoughts together. Others started spilling out of the cracks. “If there’s anything - Aziraphale, I’m so sorry, I’m so _sorry_ , it’s my fault they did this to you, you didn’t deserve it, I’ll never forgive myself -”

“Shhh.” 

Crowley cut short. Aziraphale was still staring at him, utterly unmoving, as though the rest of his body hadn’t woken up yet.

It seemed a long time before he spoke. He opened his mouth, but nothing escaped it for a protracted moment. Crowley wondered wildly if he’d forgotten how to speak - could the Fall do that to someone? Had it done that to him? He couldn’t remember, that endless time alone had been so unreal anyway -

But he did speak eventually. Slowly, deliberately. “I’m hungry.” 

Crowley blinked. “Hungry?”

“Yes. I want food.” 

“You…” Crowley shook his head. “You should have water first. You haven’t had any in days, and - and your voice is gone.” 

In another wild conjecture he wondered if Aziraphale was going to snap at him - shout, show that harsh scowl he’d shown in the last seconds of his Fall, transform utterly back to that stranger on the clifftop. But Aziraphale only nodded assent. “Water first, then.” 

Crowley staggered when he tried to gain his feet. It had been too long since he’d tried to walk. But he managed to stumble to the kitchen and fill a glass with water. When he came back he took up his previous position; there was an indent on the carpet from where his knees had been. He held the water up for Aziraphale to drink. 

Aziraphale sipped slowly. He sighed when he’d swallowed the water down; his voice, afterward, was a little clearer. “Thank you.” 

“What -” Crowley swallowed. “What do you want to eat?” 

A frown creased Aziraphale’s brow. He appeared to be thinking hard; he turned his eyes up to the ceiling for a moment. Crowley hung on his words with bated breath, though he hardly knew why, was hardly aware of what he was waiting for. 

“I want steak,” said Aziraphale decidedly. “There’s a cut of filet mignon in the fridge I was saving. You can miracle it ready.” 

_Filet mignon_. Crowley felt something stirring in his chest, something sharp and surprised. Aziraphale’s favorite cut, the one he always ordered when they went out for steak - and gave particular, exacting instructions on how long it was to be cooked for. He staggered to his feet again, hurrying back toward the kitchen. 

It wasn’t difficult to find the steak. Though his hands still shook, he was bursting with nervous energy, and he had no shortage of power available to prepare the steak with. Tiny golden potatoes materialized next to it on the plate, along with greens; the plate steamed when he brought it back out. 

He helped Aziraphale upright again. Aziraphale flinched when Crowley touched his back, and he was too weak to adjust himself, but Crowley managed to prop him up enough on pillows that he could place the plate in his lap. 

“Can you eat by yourself?” Crowley asked as he miracled a knife and fork into appearance. 

Aziraphale reached out his hand slowly to take the fork. “I… I think so.” 

Crowley held his breath again as he watched. Aziraphale took the knife so slowly to the meat that Crowley was grateful he hadn’t asked for anything firmer; it took him an agonizingly long time to cut off a single bite. But when he speared it with his fork and lifted it to his lips, when he bit down on the meat -

The thing in Crowley’s chest twisted violently. Aziraphale shut his eyes, in the same way he always had, and hummed in muted appreciation of the flavor.

“Nothing like a well-cooked filet,” he said. 

Whipped, beaten, broken and burned, and Aziraphale still ate and talked about food in the exact same way. Crowley found tears pooling in his eyes for the thousandth time. For the thousandth time a sob wrenched from his throat. 

“Crowley.” 

Aziraphale’s voice had gone a little sharper. Crowley looked up; the fork and knife had been laid down, and Aziraphale was staring at him again, his gaze a little clearer, a little more aware.

“Crowley,” he said, “you’re filthy.” 

He looked down at himself absentmindedly. He was covered in mud, of course, from the Pit, and his wrists were rubbed raw and bloody, but Aziraphale looked far worse. “It’s nothing. I just - just had a hard time bringing you here.” 

“Well, there’s no need to stay that way.” Aziraphale’s voice sounded almost ordinary, still a little sharp, almost chiding. As though Crowley had said something silly and Aziraphale had to put him to rights. “I’ll be able to eat this filet myself. You go and clean yourself up.” 

“But -”

“No buts.” Aziraphale shook his head, then winced at the motion. 

“Are you all right?” 

Aziraphale exhaled slowly. He didn’t smile at Crowley as he usually would, didn’t assure him with that nervous, twitching cheerfulness that he was tickety-boo. He kept his eyes down on his food when he spoke. “Yes. I’m all right.” 

Crowley was hasty in cleaning himself. He stripped off his muddied clothes and miracled a hot shower ready for himself; he’d intended to be in and out in five minutes, but he spent longer on his wrists, making the water cool on them. It was shockingly soothing to let coldness run over the burns. He hadn’t even been thinking about his own pain all this time.

He washed his hair carelessly and miracled it dry when he stepped out. He miracled new clothes for himself and stumbled back to Aziraphale’s sofa, hoping desperately he hadn’t missed too much. 

The plate was empty. A little color had returned to Aziraphale’s cheeks. But Crowley noticed, now, after just having cleaned himself, how dirty Aziraphale still was.

“I think I ought to get cleaned up too,” he said. “Would you help me?” 

Crowley didn’t know where this was going. Aziraphale’s focus was still on healing; of course Crowley would help him, of course he’d stay to care for Aziraphale in whatever way he could. But what about after that? What about when Aziraphale had to come to terms with their new reality? What about when he remembered that everything he’d suffered was because of Crowley, and his anger lashed out in full force? 

But he couldn’t think about that now. He miracled the plate and utensils away and put his arm around Aziraphale once more. The little gasps of pain from Aziraphale pierced him, but he didn’t loosen his hold. He supported him up and tentatively, softly onto his feet. 

“I should have -” Aziraphale groaned and leaned harder onto Crowley. “I shouldn’t have told you to clean yourself. You’ll just get dirty again now.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Crowley quickly. “I don’t care. Just let me take care of you.” 

It felt like a process of hours to get Aziraphale into the bathroom. When they reached it Aziraphale was practically crumbling against him; a shower was out of the question, so Crowley miracled the tub filled with soapy water. 

“Perfect,” Aziraphale sighed. “Only…” 

“What?”

Aziraphale’s face colored slightly. “I don’t feel strong enough to do a miracle yet. And I can’t - I can’t move well. Would you…” 

Crowley’s eyes dropped to his trousers. “Oh - oh. Yeah. Of course.” 

He didn’t look when he miracled the trousers away, when he helped Aziraphale down into the bath. But he couldn’t fail to see Aziraphale’s face. When the warm water enveloped his skin, his eyes slid shut again, and that hum - that pleased little affirmative noise, the same one he’d made at the steak - set Crowley’s heart cracking again. 

“What do you need?” he asked softly. 

“Just… help me, please.” 

Crowley miracled a damp washcloth and stroked it over Aziraphale’s skin, smudging away the dirt on his shoulder. Aziraphale’s eyes stayed closed. Crowley wiped the dirt lines from his face, gently rubbed shampoo into his hair and washed it out again. He was slow, careful when he switched his attention to Aziraphale’s back.

“It’s going to hurt,” he warned. “I’m - I’m sorry, I know you’re still in pain, but I have to touch it and -”

“Shhh.” The same quiet shushing sound again. Aziraphale lifted a trembling hand and placed it over Crowley’s. He still didn’t open his eyes; his face stayed slack, unresistant to Crowley’s ministrations. “It’s all right, Crowley. I trust you.” 

Crowley couldn’t speak for a long moment. 

_I trust you._

The words were said so simply, so easily, as if they were utterly natural. Crowley had caused Aziraphale’s damnation - by rights he should be thrown out and cursed, should be beaten for every blow they’d given Aziraphale, should be told, at last, how worthless, how despicable he was. But Aziraphale was laid out in front of him, aware yet completely vulnerable, more bare than he’d been before the angels, allowing Crowley to touch him - and declaring he _trusted_ Crowley. 

“You…” Crowley gripped Aziraphale’s hand. “Angel, I did this to you. I’m so sorry, I’m _so_ sorry, and I understand if you never want to see me again, I -”

“Crowley.” 

No sharpness in his voice this time. When Aziraphale said his name, it was with infinite softness, a hushed, gentle tide of emotion.

Crowley looked up, and Aziraphale’s red eyes were gazing into his with a new kind of expression. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered. “Darling.” 

This was too much. The thing in his chest was going to choke him. Crowley shook his head and turned his attention again to Aziraphale’s back. “Just tell me if it hurts too much. Please, just - don’t let me hurt you any more.” 

And Aziraphale relaxed into his arms. No hesitation, no doubt, no drawing back. Nothing. 

_______

_It had all come down to that moment. Everything had turned crystal-clear. He’d known every act of compassion for Crowley was a sin against Heaven, and he’d known Heaven would destroy him if they ever discovered it, and he’d gone into his friendship with Crowley with his eyes open, despite how hard he’d tried to shut them._

_He’d lived in fear of Falling, but hadn’t he always known that was what he was hurtling towards? Hadn’t he always seen that horror at the end of his path?_

_And he’d been faced with that choice. In the final moments. To deny Crowley and stay in Heaven, or to stay by Crowley and enter Hell. And maybe it hadn’t really been a choice at all, but it had felt like one, in some strange way. Aziraphale had felt there was something riding on his answer._

_And._

_______

Aziraphale was clean. Crowley helped him out of the tub and miracled clean clothes onto him; the same kinds of clothes he’d worn before, cream and tan and a tartan bow tie. He helped him to an armchair, rather than back to the sofa, and let him lie back on it, still a little upright.

Not a word came from Aziraphale all the while. His face was pensive now; he sighed once more when Crowley lowered him into the armchair, but otherwise he wasn’t roused from his thoughts. Crowley wondered if he could see images of the Fall when he closed his eyes, the way Crowley could. He wondered if he ought to rouse Aziraphale from those memories. 

What could he do, though? That was the eternal question, wasn’t it - what in the world could he do? 

But Aziraphale broke the silence before Crowley could think of an answer. He opened his eyes to look at Crowley standing above him, and he met Crowley’s gaze steadily, and he spoke with a voice that didn’t tremble.

“They did it,” he said. “They damned me.” 

Crowley couldn’t bring himself to agree in words. He swallowed and nodded. 

“They tortured me. They - they threw me over the cliff.” 

“Yes, I -” Insensible, unable to take those matter-of-fact words, he dropped to one knee again. “I’m sorry - you didn’t deserve it, I deserved it, I’m sorry -”

Aziraphale took his hand and squeezed it hard. 

When Crowley looked up, shocked by the strength of the gesture, Aziraphale’s face had shifted again. The calm in it, the almost-recognizable serenity, the enjoyment of the food and the bath, all that had vanished - his eyes blazed, his mouth was set in those grim lines again. 

But seen up close, Crowley realized now, they didn’t trace the outline of anger. They weren’t bitter, as he’s supposed, weren’t a reflection of some deep wellspring of darkness. Here in the intimate light of the bookshop they looked more like lines of determination. 

_______

_He’d reached down into the core of himself, to draw an answer up from there. He’d reached down to see if there was anything left beyond the pain._

_And there was._

_There was -_

_Aziraphale had nearly gasped aloud when he realized it._

_Something vast, something solid and unyielding, something that existed without white wings and white hair and blue eyes, something beyond the words Angel and Heaven and Blessed and Holy. An enormous something of infinite strength he’d never fathomed the existence of before. Something that he melted into when the question was posed to him one last time._

_______

“I didn’t deny you,” said Aziraphale quietly. 

Crowley gaped. He hardly understood the words, though they rolled through him, making their weight known before their import. Though it made his heart throb to hear them, and not only with pain. “You - what?”

“They said they would stop if I told them I didn’t love you.” Aziraphale’s grip was still hard, almost bruising on Crowley’s hand. “But I didn’t.” 

“You should have.” Crowley couldn't keep the words inside him. “I wasn’t worth that. And it was only words, it wouldn’t even have meant anything, I wouldn’t -”

“They damned me for loving you.” Aziraphale’s whole face looked like a dancing flame. “Listen, Crowley. That’s what it was all for. Because I chose you over them, because I chose love over safety, because I wouldn’t bend to their demands in the end.” 

“I…” Crowley stared helplessly. 

“Just listen. They did what I was afraid of. Do you see? They did the _worst thing possible_ to me.” Something else entered Aziraphale’s expression as he took Crowley’s hand in both of his. Something fierce and glowing and overwhelming. “And I survived.” 

This was impossible. Absurd, ridiculous, incredible. Aziraphale’s transformed face, with the red eyes, the gray hair, the demonic magic clinging to his skin after the Hellfire had touched him, was _smiling._

“I survived,” he said, “and now it’s over. I don’t - don’t have to go back. I don’t have to fear them anymore.” Aziraphale stared up at the ceiling as though thinking to address the heavens themselves. “They have no more power over me, they’ve done their worst already, and it wasn’t enough - they couldn’t change me - I _wouldn’t die._ ” 

“But,” whispered Crowley, “but you’re not an angel anymore.”

“And I thought that would destroy me.” Aziraphale’s smile widened, reaching his eyes so they crinkled in an utterly familiar way. “I thought if I couldn’t be an angel I was nothing. But I found…” his eyes went dreamy for a moment, as though wading back through a memory. “I found something deeper than that. Inside me. I thought being an angel was everything to me, but -” he laughed, a tiny, weak laugh, but an unmistakable one. “I still crave human food. I still know the Japanese and the French I learned. I still like the same books I did before.” 

He bent down just a fraction to take Crowley’s other hand, gathering them both up to hold them gently to his chest. “I still love you.” 

Crowley’s heart thudded. His head spun. Just as easily as _I trust you_ , those words had fallen out into the open. 

“You…” he said. “You’ve never told me that before.” 

Aziraphale laughed again, a little longer. “Well, my dear, you must have noticed I went to _some_ length to avoid denying it.” 

It was impossible, _impossible_. Too good to be true. The hope that surged up within him, that reached out toward Aziraphale, that wrapped itself around his triumphant eyes - it couldn’t be real, there was no chance. This couldn’t be for him. Not for a demon who’d made another angel Fall.

“You’re not - not angry with me, then?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale’s eyes softened. His hands released Crowley’s and moved up toward his face. He stroked Crowley’s cheek, brushing away a tear that cut down it. “How could I be angry with you? All you ever did was love me. That isn’t a crime.” 

“But… but if it weren’t for me -”

“If it weren’t for you,” said Aziraphale firmly, “I’d have done something else to make them cast me out. They’ve never really been my home.” 

_“Angel.”_ Crowley sniffed. 

“Oh, but my fear has been hard on you, hasn’t it?” Aziraphale tugged gently at his face, and Crowley drew up toward him until their foreheads touched. “I’ve made you feel ashamed to be a demon. I’ve made you feel you were less than me, somehow, if you think I made a mistake in choosing you.” 

“You had everything.”

“I had _nothing_ , Crowley.” Aziraphale shook his head. “I lived in fear. You were the brightest thing in my universe, and it was only my own terror of the unknown that kept me from flinging myself at you from the start.” 

“ _Aziraphale_ , how -”

“I choose you now. I’m free to choose, and I choose you.” Aziraphale breathed in and out, slow and deep, so his breath mingled with Crowley’s. “I don’t regret it. I never could. Crowley, you are worth it.” 

And before Crowley could begin to cry again, Aziraphale kissed him, deeply and gently, holding him close and steady and sure. 

They’d never kissed before - they’d hardly gone beyond holding hands, before everything - but Crowley had imagined it plenty of times. He’d imagined pressing Aziraphale against another wall, or wrapping himself tight around him, sitting with Aziraphale’s head in his lap and bending down to brush his lips over his forehead, and then Aziraphale would catch his mouth with a twinkle in his eyes. He’d imagined Aziraphale’s lips soft, yielding, his mouth slightly open to let Crowley in. 

He hadn’t imagined Aziraphale’s kiss would be strong. He hadn’t imagined his hands firm and steely beneath their gentleness. He hadn’t imagined, even in this position half-crouched over Aziraphale’s weakened form, feeling surrounded and held and _kept_. But oh, it was a glorious surprise. 

He wasn’t going to be sent away. Aziraphale wasn’t angry. He still wanted Crowley, in all his demonic nature - still _loved_ him, a word he’d never used, but which he said with absolute certainty even after what had happened to him. 

Crowley felt dizzy when he drew away. Aziraphale’s face was the tiniest bit flushed, and his smile was more pronounced than ever. And his eyes… when the light hit them, his eyes looked like rubies. 

“I feel a little stronger now,” said Aziraphale. “I think…” 

Crowley stepped back, staring as Aziraphale put his hands on the arms of the chair and slowly, slowly rose to his feet. 

“Yes,” said Aziraphale. “Yes. I think I’m ready.”

“For what?” 

Aziraphale flashed a grin at Crowley and turned toward the kitchen again. “Come with me.”

And what could he do? Still feeling the pressure of Aziraphale’s lips on his, the warm remembrance of Aziraphale’s hands on his face, Crowley followed.


	3. Chapter 3

Every muscle in Aziraphale’s body felt fragile. He ought to lie down and let himself rest. And he would, certainly - but now now. Now adrenaline was buzzing through him at a pitch high enough to smother the pain of his movements. He strode over to the kitchen, then to the closet in the back of it, and he barely felt how each footfall sent shocks through his half-healed wounds. 

He wasn’t thinking about that. He could barely keep his thoughts on the past for even a moment; the future unfolding before him was so strange and so bright and so intoxicating. He was free of Heaven. There was no coming back from this, there was nothing left to hold onto, there was no more death-grip needing to be held on that slippery rock of holiness. He could do whatever he liked.

He was _stronger_ than them. They’d tried to break him and they’d failed. They’d underestimated him, a million times underestimated him, and they’d lost him without accomplishing anything at all. 

Aziraphale couldn’t help laughing again as he pulled open the closet door. 

Crowley gasped as he saw what was within. In a perfectly neat row, on close-drilled little hooks, nearly twenty medals hung gleaming from the wall. 

“Medals of achievement,” said Aziraphale. “They gave these to me when they were pleased.”

Nearly twenty times in six thousand years. He’d lived for those medals once; he’d been so meticulous in keeping them all crowded together here, just far enough apart to distinguish each individual one. He’d hoped once to gain fifty of them; he’d thought to celebrate with Crowley when he reached that milestone. But they were handed out so sparingly. 

He pulled one from its hook. He felt the heft of it in his hand; it was made of crystal and glowed with a sort of inner sunshine. He remembered admiring the appearance of the first one he’d received, marveling at the craftsmanship. 

A thrill ran through him, up from his stomach and down his arm, to the tips of his fingers, and he spun on his heel and flung the medal across the kitchen. It hit the far wall and shattered. 

Crowley’s eyes widened. “Aziraphale!” 

“There!” Aziraphale cried, and the thrill made his voice loud, stopped him from holding back. “There, _that’s_ what I think of Heavenly medals!”

“Are you -” Crowley’s eyes remained wide, but a smile was creeping up onto his face as though without his consent. “Are you seriously -” 

Aziraphale snatched up another medal and hurled it, with even more force than the first. The sound of it shattering echoed loud in his ears. It ratcheted up his heart rate even more. He’d hung on Gabriel’s approval so desperately, so despairingly, for so long. But he didn’t need his approval now. He didn’t need anyone’s. He took two more medals, one in each hand, and when they smashed he found himself laughing. 

“Yeah,” Crowley said, softly at first, then louder. “Yeah, angel, yes - _yes_ , smash them!” 

“Gabriel!” Aziraphale cried heedlessly. “Are you watching, Gabriel?” 

“Go on!” Crowley was certainly grinning now. The excitement in Aziraphale’s blood had infected him as well. “Go on, angel, tell him!” 

“This is what I think of _you!_ ” He screamed the word _you_ as he dashed three more medals against the wall at once. “That’s what I think of you and your whole stupid celestial host! This is what I think of Heaven!” 

“Break them all!” Crowley couldn’t contain his delight. “Do it!”

“ _Fuck_ Heaven!” Aziraphale flung a final medal and tilted his head up to the ceiling, pointing and imagining he could see the sky. “ _Fuck_ your rules! _Fuck_ your duties! Can you hear me, Gabriel? Michael? Sandalphon? _Fuck you!_ ” 

They didn’t respond. What could they do? Aziraphale was a demon, he wasn’t under their control. 

The adrenaline wasn’t finished. A million new possibilities exploded into Aziraphale’s mind like fireworks. He pitched forward and grabbed Crowley’s hands again, staring into his golden eyes, still laughing. 

“Will you come with me?” he said, breathless.

Crowley didn’t ask what he meant. He nodded.

The world around them warped. It was the first miracle Aziraphale had performed since his Fall; the feeling was different, a more grounded kind of magic, a more personal kind. But no less powerful for that. And when he let his desire flow unabashed through him, decidedly stronger, he thought, than anything he’d done before.

And suddenly they were somewhere else. They were beneath a churning, stormy sky, on top of a rain-lashed cliff, surrounded by a vast, downpouring night. 

“Gabriel!” he screamed again. 

Nothing responded through the storm. Rain drenched his hair, streamed down his shoulders. It felt kind and cool on his back. He spread his arms and let it wash over him, and it was real, and it was natural, and it was _good_. 

“How’s this for a frivolous miracle?” he shouted upward. “Can you see me? Did you see me make this rainstorm?” 

Crowley’s jaw dropped. “Angel, you _made_ this?”

“Not the cliff,” Aziraphale said wildly. “But the storm - yes, I made the storm.”

“How…” Crowley was laughing again. “How is that _possible?_ I’ve never seen a demon summon a storm before, I didn’t know -” 

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hands again without a word, and let his will burst through his mind, and the world changed again. Suddenly they were out in the middle of a desert, the night sky above them blazing with stars.

“Can you see me now?” Aziraphale demanded. “Are you going to reprimand me now, for my miracles? Are you going to tell me I’m doing everything wrong again?”

No answer. Aziraphale felt a breeze ripple over him, over his still-damp skin, and the world suddenly seemed so impossibly wide, so open and inviting, that he thought he could keep transporting himself and Crowley places for the rest of eternity. 

“You’ve been holding out,” Crowley gasped. “How much power do you _have_ , Aziraphale?”

“Enough.” Aziraphale sucked in the desert air. “Enough. _Enough!_ ” 

But he didn’t want to keep transporting forever. He had a specific destination in mind as he took Crowley’s hands again. When the world resolved itself a third time, they were on the roof of his bookshop, gazing out over Soho from a bird’s eye view. 

“I’m free!” Aziraphale called out to the humans bustling below them. “I’m _free!_ ” 

And no one, no one tried to stop him. 

_______

It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t some crazy fantasy. Even Crowley couldn’t have come up with something like this, even he couldn’t have dared to imagine Aziraphale would do these things. He knew it was real as he clung to Aziraphale’s hands like lifelines. He’d entirely forgotten his dread of being cast out. He could feel nothing but exhilaration as Aziraphale yanked them to the cliff, to the desert, to the rooftop. 

And then another miracle landed them in a new place, a place Crowley had never seen before but recognized immediately. 

“Welcome home, dearest,” Aziraphale murmured, and kissed Crowley again.

They were in a little bedroom whose nightstand and dresser, along with large portions of the floor, were covered in books. Aziraphale’s bedroom, there could be no doubt. But Aziraphale let him glimpse it for only a moment before he’d been pushed against the door, body parallel with Aziraphale’s, and Aziraphale had pressed his lips to Crowley with that same tender, towering strength as before. 

A spark of nervousness suddenly twitched to life in Crowley’s mind. He hadn’t expected to need this revelation for another hundred years, given the pace at which they’d been moving, but here he was in Aziraphale’s bedroom, pressed against the door, and Aziraphale’s hand was on his waist and exploring tentatively beneath his shirt - which felt wonderful, the warmth of his fingers on Crowley’s skin, but -

“Wait,” he gasped between kisses. “Wait, angel. I don’t want…” 

Aziraphale’s hand stilled. His kisses grew lighter, a caress against his skin. “My love, I’m not interested in sex.” 

Relief shot through him. “You - you’re not?” 

“No.” Aziraphale bent his head to kiss Crowley’s throat. The sensation made his heart thrum in his chest. “May I touch you, though? I only want to be close to you.”

_Close to you. I love you. I trust you._

It wasn’t a dream, but by Someone, it felt like one. Aziraphale going so fast he was finally catching up to Crowley. Aziraphale taking him, holding him, treasuring him, telling him impossible things - that he was worthy, that he was safe, that he was loved -

“Yes,” Crowley said. “Yes, angel, please.” 

Aziraphale stepped just slightly away to pull off Crowley’s shirt. In another minute, then, he’d pulled off his shirt as well. Exposing his skin - still only half-healed, but healed enough. Displayed without shame or fear in front of Crowley. 

_I trust you. I love you._

Crowley took a step forward, and Aziraphale closed the distance between them again, and this time he wrapped his arms tight around all of Crowley, one hand around his shoulders and the other at the small of his back. Crowley embraced Aziraphale’s belly, returning kisses to Aziraphale’s throat, accepting ones to his forehead, to his eyelids, to his cheeks. They’d never been so close together. They’d never had so, so little between them. 

_Close to you._

“My angel,” Crowley whispered. “I love you so much.” 

Aziraphale’s ruby eyes shone as he led Crowley to the bed. “I’m no one else’s angel, now, but I’ll still be yours.” 

“Still be mine.” Crowley almost choked on the words. “Be - be mine forever, Aziraphale.” 

“Of course.” Aziraphale stretched himself out and gestured for Crowley to join him lying down. “If you’ll consent to be mine in return.” 

Crowley laughed. His heart felt lighter than he’d ever dared hope it could feel again. He faced Aziraphale so they were chest-to-chest and wrapped his arms around him again, feeling filled. How in the whole wide universe could he do anything but consent to that? 

_______

Aziraphale hurt, still, all over. But Crowley’s embrace softened the pain. It would heal, with time and with patience. He would feel like his old self again.

Only not quite. He felt larger than he had before, larger in some intangible, incorporeal way. Larger and surer. He’d barely ever slept in the six thousand years before the apocalypse; nerves had kept him up more nights than he’d have liked to admit. And yet, despite the terror of what had happened to him, he wasn’t so afraid of sleeping now.

And he didn’t mind sleeping by Crowley, holding Crowley in his arms and nuzzling into his neck to pull him even closer. Crowley gazing at him, gentle and soft and adoring. In fact he could quite get used to that. 

“What’ll we do tomorrow, angel?” Crowley asked, half on the edge of sleep already. 

“Oh, tomorrow I’ll have to rest.” Aziraphale hummed as Crowley stroked his arm, gently running a hand down his side. “I hope you’ll see fit to join me.”

“I don’t want to be anywhere else.” Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s lips, quietly, still rubbing a hand along his side. “I want to stay with you for another thousand years at least.” 

Aziraphale caught Crowley’s hand with the last of his strength and kissed his knuckles. “I’ll be there with you, my treasure.” 

His sleep was deep. Nightmares tried to torment it, but when any of the angels appeared in his recollections he forced himself awake, and there was Crowley, slack-faced and peaceful, still holding him tight and close, loving him endlessly, perfectly, patiently even in sleep. And it was hard to be haunted when this particular demon was watching over him. 

_______

“Let me see your wings,” murmured Crowley in the morning. 

Aziraphale had sat up with difficulty, but he wasn’t going to move any more for the rest of the day. Crowley stroked his thumb over the back of Aziraphale’s hand as Aziraphale worked to pull his wings out from where they were tucked away. 

They were messy. No longer broken, but just as fragile as the rest of him, and with the feathers sticking out on every side. Crowley didn’t try to touch them. They were too sensitive for that, and might be for months, no matter how quickly the rest of him healed.

Still. He wanted to see the whole picture again. Aziraphale with black wings, red eyes, gray hair. 

The image was offset a little by the fact that Aziraphale was wearing tartan pajamas. That, and the affection in his eyes, set him apart from any demon Crowley had ever seen. But his infernal nature couldn’t be concealed - Crowley recognized it well enough, as a demon himself. Aziraphale didn’t look harmless anymore. He would never again look like the kind of old, frail bookseller that the neighborhood had thought it knew before.

Yet had Aziraphale ever been harmless? Would Crowley ever _really_ have described him as frail? 

And past the hair and the eyes, wasn’t it the same face? Weren’t the laugh-lines on it still the same as before? Weren’t the lips he’d kissed last night the same lips, weren’t the hands that had held him the same hands? Wasn’t this the angel he’d fallen for just _because_ he’d rebelled against his orders? 

He was changed. But maybe not ruined, not broken, as Crowley had feared. Maybe…

Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s hands. “They’re beautiful.”

“Do you think so?”

“I didn’t think I would.” Crowley drew Aziraphale into his arms, cradling him to his chest. “I thought I’d be horrified at them. But… well, they need to heal, and they need some grooming, but they suit you.” 

Aziraphale smiled serenely as he rested against Crowley. “And my eyes?” 

“Your eyes.” Crowley ran a hand through Aziraphale’s hair, gently scratching his scalp and listening to that pleased hum. He wanted to memorize that hum and play it in his mind every second he and Aziraphale were parted. “Your eyes are breathtaking, Aziraphale.”

“Yours are breathtaking too.” 

Once upon a time he would have scoffed at such a compliment. Not many days ago he would have scoffed at the very idea of a demon’s features being pretty. But here he was, now, with the most beautiful demon in the universe leaned against him, and he wondered how he ever could have doubted it. 

_Free_ , Aziraphale had said. 

Yes, they were free. Infinitely freer than if Crowley had been an angel. 

Maybe he wasn’t a curse. Maybe Falling hadn’t made him a monster, if it hadn’t made one out of Aziraphale. Maybe it really was nothing more than freedom. 

Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s forehead. “I’m going to get you breakfast, all right?” 

Aziraphale nodded. “Thank you, darling.” 

And maybe they had a future of that freedom now. Maybe they had a forever, an eternity on Earth of waking up together, of eating together, of kisses and smiles and holding each other through pain. Maybe they had a thousand years and then a thousand thousand more to comfort each other. Crowley breathed in the smell of Aziraphale, and despite the taste of Hell on the back of his tongue, it was a soothing smell. It smelled like home. He’d always been ashamed of that smell before. 

Maybe their future was bright. After all, incredibly, Aziraphale trusted him.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my content? Find me on tumblr @[whatawriterwields](https://whatawriterwields.tumblr.com)!


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